Scattering to Cinderella Town
Rain obscured everything that fall
The sort that washes hope away
Left the sky leaden, the air dirtier than it had been
And turned the dusty road to soup.
Onrushing traffic threw a blinding tsunami
Into view, obscured the window.
So I missed the Cuban missile crisis
And so much more, until
That one small step, that giant leap . . .
About this: My family emigrated to Belize for most of the ’60’s, leaving California during the height of the Cuban missile crisis, and arriving by road on a soggy grey afternoon in the suburb of Cinderella Town. I would not return to North America until July 1969, arriving in Pharr, Texas the evening before the first moonwalk fulfilled the optimistic promise JFK had made to the world all those years before.
In the meantime, I missed all of the great cultural revolution that had swept over the land, washing hope away.